Blackwater, the world’s biggest private army, faces a terrible charge – that they were on a crusade to wipe out Muslims
By ZOE BRENNAN
(The Daily Mail) The convoy of SUVs threading through Baghdad’s busy streets came to an abrupt halt at Nisour Square.
Inside the vehicles were a team of black-clad security guards from the infamous Blackwater private military contractor – the American private army accused last week of embarking on a ‘crusade to eliminate Muslims’.
This supposed ‘crusade’ has earned the company’s mysterious founder, Erik Prince, over $1billion for government security contracts alone. But, as we shall see, this huge pay-cheque certainly wasn’t gained without getting some hands dirty.
For the Blackwater guards who stopped at Nisour Square were bristling with guns. What happened next is now the subject of a court case.
According to one observer, the American mercenaries began shooting at random into the Iraqi crowd. ‘The shooting was so heavy it was like rain,’ says Farid Walid, who was shot in the attack two years ago, a massacre which left 17 Iraqis dead.
‘I saw lots of people getting shot. The driver who had been in front of me died and his wife fell out of the car. Her child was killed as well. The shooting went on for about ten minutes.’
Umm Tahsin, widow of one of the men killed, says: ‘They [Blackwater] are a group of criminals. [It] was a massacre. They destroyed our family.’
Blackwater insists its guards returned fire against armed insurgents threatening American diplomats.
However, an Iraqi government official has claimed the U.S. security men opened fire because they were stuck in traffic, throwing stun grenades in order to clear the road.
An eyewitness backs up his story. Hairdresser Suhad Mirza, 29, was working in her salon about 250m from Nisour Square when she heard sirens. ‘I went outside the shop to see a convoy of SUVs with security guards shooting randomly at people,’ she says.
‘Apparently, the guards wanted to make their way through the traffic jam made by an Iraqi army checkpoint. Minutes later, the ambulances arrived to pick up the wounded and dead.’
‘Murdering Iraqis under Christian supremacy’
At a congressional hearing in October 2007, following the controversy related to Blackwater’s conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan, he refused to discuss his company’s finances, saying: ‘We’re a private company. There’s a key word there – private.’
He also objected to the use of the word ‘mercenaries’, a ‘slanderous term’ or an ‘inflammatory term they use to malign us’, saying he preferred to call his employees ‘loyal Americans’ who ‘bleed red, white and blue’.
That may be, but the John Doe No2 affidavit alleges that Prince likes to recruit men to Iraq ‘who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis’. In a statement, the company said it would respond ‘to the anonymous unsubstantiated and offensive assertions put forward’ in its brief, to be filed on August 17.
A spokesperson added: ‘It is obvious that plaintiffs have chosen to slander Mr Prince rather than raise legal arguments or actual facts that will be considered by a court of law. We are happy to engage them there. We question the judgment of anyone who relies upon an [reiterates] anonymous declarations.’
The company failed to respond when I contacted it for further comment. Five Blackwater guards who pleaded not guilty to manslaughter charges are awaiting trial over the Nisour Square attack. A sixth guard pleaded guilty.
For his part, Abu Suhad, a Baghdad local, has no time for company spokesmen and official statements. He lost his daughter in 2007 when she was driving her car near the Iraqi foreign ministry in central Baghdad.
He says: ‘Eyewitnesses told me that four white Blackwater cars went by her. They were already past when the last one shot her in the head at close range and killed her. The bullet came from the driver’s window, which means that he got next to her when he shot her.
‘The bullet entered from under the ear and left from the upper side of her skull. There were bits of her hair and skin on the car roof.’
As he mourns his daughter, he is left wondering why a security company was supposedly allowed to act above the law by the U.S. government. It is a decision that might yet come back to haunt the American military.
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Tags: black water, blackwater in pakistan, crusade, iraq, nisour square, Politics, World
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I wonder how can the rulers be so blind and helpless. we used to be a nation